Labview Runtime 7.0 crashes on WinServer 2003 under VMware

[DER]

I am configuring a new VMware machine running Windows Server 2003 to host Labview 7.0 runtime applications.  The runtime engine installed fine, but any built app (built on WinXP) crashes upon loading.  No helpful error messages except that it "encountered a problem".  Should this work??

[GuenterMueller]

It works. I selected the "Event Tracking.VI" that comes with the LabVIEW examples as the top-level VI.
The application starts up properly and it exposes the exactly behaviour as the VI in LabVIEW.
Regards, Guenter

[DER]

Thanks for the info - at least that's hopeful.  To help my sysadmin out, could you help with some more detail on your setup?

What version of VMware were you using?
Were you using RunTimeEngine 7.0?  If not, what version?
What release of WinServ2003 were you using?
Did you need any special config for WinServ2003?

I work in a large national laboratory and want to take advantage of the institutional IT resources to take over managing a large scale data server that uses Data Socket.  WinServ2003 is their current standard.

Thanks again -

[Eric A.]

Hi,
Windows Server 2003 was written before LabVIEW 7.0 was released.  NI does not support LabVIEW on windows Server 2003 and therefore doesn't respond to bug reports.   I have heard from customers like Guenter, that LabVIEW applications will run on server 2003 but we don't guarentee any performance.  Since I don't support it, my knowledge is limited so hopefully some of the other people on the message boards have figured out what works best. 

[GuenterMueller]

DER, surely you have read Eric's statement. Nevertheless, here are the brief answers to your questions:

What version of VMware were you using? -> Workstation 6.0.1
Were you using RunTimeEngine 7.0?  -> yes, no LabVIEW is installed on the Server.
What release of WinServ2003 were you using? -> Enterprise Edition with SP1
Did you need any special config for WinServ2003 -> No. (I didn't configure anything.)

Regards, Guenter

[DER]

I dug deeper and played with security settings.  First I tried different "Compatibility Mode" settings for the apps, but no luck.  Then I found that things worked if I added the app names to the DEP exception list (System/Advanced/Performance/Data Execution Prevention.)  Apparently the runtime apps execute code in some memory areas deemed to be security sensitive.  The DEP Help implies that a DEP message would be displayed if a program was blocked, but this didn't happen.  Using DEP for all programs except those in the list is required by our server folks.  I guess this can be an issue with any OS that uses of DEP, not just Server2003.   Looks like I can push forward with this project now.   Thanks again for the help -

Dave